Volker Schlöndorff’s Cinema: Adaptation, Politics and the “Movie-Appropriate”examines the work of major postwar Germandirector Volker Schlöndorff in historical, economic, and artistic contexts. . In spite of Schlöndorff’s successes with films like The Lost Honor ofKatharina Blum and The Tin Drum, as well as his acclaimed work in the U.S. with Death of a Salesman, Gathering of Old Men and The Handmaid’s Tale, this is the first in-depthcritical study of the filmmaker’s career.
Arguably a pioneer of the French New Wave (with Ascenseur pour l’échafaud, 1957) Louis Malle went on to enjoy an acclaimed yet provocative and versatile transatlantic career. This collection of original essays proposes to reassess his richly eclectic and boldly subversive oeuvre and redress the surprising critical neglect it has suffered over the years. It does so through a combination of transversal and monographic analyses that use a variety of critical lenses and theoretical tools in order to examine Malle’s documentaries as well as his fiction features (and, more importantly, the constant shuttling and uniquely persistent cross-pollination between those two cinematic approaches), illuminate the profound, lasting dialogue his films entertained with literature and theater, bring to the fore their sustained, albeit often oblique autobiographical thrust along with their scathing sociopolitical critique, and scrutinize the alternating use of stars and non-professional actors. In addition, the volume features an exclusive interview with the acclaimed playwright John Guare (a close friend and collaborator of Louis Malle’s who scripted Atlantic City) and is bookended by a foreword by Volker Schlöndorff and an afterword by Wes Anderson, two renowned filmmakers who articulate their admiration for, and the seminal influence of, their predecessor.
A powerful depiction of racial tensions arising over the death of a Cajun farmer at the hands of a black man--set on a Louisiana sugarcane plantation in the 1970s. The Village Voice called A Gathering of Old Men “the best-written novel on Southern race relations in over a decade.”
A history of German film dealing with individual films as works of art has long been needed. Existing histories tend to treat cinema as an economic rather than an aesthetic phenomenon; earlier surveys that do engage with individual films do not include films of recent decades. This book treats representative films from the beginnings of German film to the present. Providing historical context through an introduction and interchapters preceding the treatments of each era's films, the volume is suitable for semester- or year-long survey courses and for anyone with an interest in German cinema. The films: The Student of Prague - The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari - The Last Laugh - Metropolis - The Blue Angel - M - Triumph of the Will - The Great Love - The Murderers Are among Us - Sun Seekers - Trace of Stones - The Legend of Paul and Paula - Solo Sunny - The Bridge - Young T rless - Aguirre, The Wrath of God - Germany in Autumn - The Marriage of Maria Braun - The Tin Drum - Marianne and Juliane - Wings of Desire - Maybe, Maybe Not - Rossini - Run Lola Run - Good Bye Lenin - Head On - The Lives of Others Stephen Brockmann is Professor of German at Carnegie Mellon University and past President of the German Studies Assocation.
Screening the Red Army Faction: Historical and Cultural Memory explores representations of the Red Army Faction (RAF) in print media, film and art, locating an analysis of these texts in the historical and political context of unfolding events. In this way, the book contributes both a new history and a new cultural history of post-fascist era West Germany that grapples with the fledgling republic's most pivotal debates about the nature of democracy and authority; about violence, its motivations and regulation; and about its cultural afterlife. Looking back at the history of representations of the RAF in various media, this book considers how our understanding of the Cold War era, of the long sixties and of the RAF is created and re-created through cultural texts.
German Culture through Film: An Introduction to German Cinema is an English-language text that serves equally well in courses on modern German film, in courses on general film studies, in courses that incorporate film as a way to study culture, and as an engaging resource for scholars, students, and devotees of cinema and film history. In its second edition, German Culture through Film expands on the first edition, providing additional chapters with context for understanding the era in which the featured films were produced. Thirty-three notable German films are arranged in seven chronological chapters, spanning key moments in German film history, from the silent era to the present. Each chapter begins with an introduction that focuses on the history and culture surrounding films of the relevant period. Sections within chapters are each devoted to one particular film, providing film credits, a summary of the story, background information, an evaluation, questions and activities to encourage diverse interpretations, a list of related films, and bibliographical information on the films discussed.
The aim of this study of contemporary German cinema is to set the significant films and film-makers in their proper context. The author explains the nature of the German film industry, the cultural inheritance of its film-makers, and the social and political climate within which they work.
An essential work of the cinematic history of the Weimar Republic by a leading figure of film criticism First published in 1947, From Caligari to Hitler remains an undisputed landmark study of the rich cinematic history of the Weimar Republic. Prominent film critic Siegfried Kracauer examines German society from 1921 to 1933, in light of such movies as The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, M, Metropolis, and The Blue Angel. He explores the connections among film aesthetics, the prevailing psychological state of Germans in the Weimar era, and the evolving social and political reality of the time. Kracauer makes a startling (and still controversial) claim: films as popular art provide insight into the unconscious motivations and fantasies of a nation. With a critical introduction by Leonardo Quaresima which provides context for Kracauer’s scholarship and his contributions to film studies, this Princeton Classics edition makes an influential work available to new generations of cinema enthusiasts.
Paints a complex portrait of East German film art and representation through examining eighteen key DEFA films following the fall of the Berlin Wall. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, East Germany's DEFA filmmakers had a brief window in which to critique GDR society on either side of the Wende, the sweeping political turn that surrounded the fall of the Berlin Wall andthe opening of the border. Building on the DEFA Film Library's retrospective Wende Flicks series and Indiana University's DEFA Project, this study examines the newly rediscovered filmic artifacts of this transitional cinema, introducing eighteen key films from 1988 to 1994 in essays by German scholars, film professionals, and cultural figures. Accompanying interviews and historical film reviews present a complex portrait of East German film art, itscommunist bloc influences, and its legacy for contemporary German film culture. The resulting anthology combines historical, autobiographical, cultural-political, and journalistic discourses to explore the tension between the hopes and frustrations these films express, the historical exigencies that overshadowed their production and reception, and the politics of their revival. Contributors: Skyler J. Arndt-Briggs, Peter Blank, Claudia Breger, Barton Byg, Knut Elstermann, Peter Kahane, Jennifer M. Kapczynski, Wolfgang Kohlhaase, Thomas Krüger, Helmut Morsbach, Benjamin Robinson, Katrin Schlösser and Frank Löprich, Nicholas Sveholm, Johannes von Moltke, Brigitta B. Wagner. Brigitta B. Wagner is an Alexander von Humboldt Fellow in Film Studies at the Freie Universität and in Time-Based Media at the Universität der Künste in Berlin.
